


Juice

by fengirl88



Series: Trouble With Harry [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Femslash, Liquid Ficlets, Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-16
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 04:11:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88/pseuds/fengirl88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Just an orange juice for me,” Harry says, glowing with virtue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Juice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bedamn](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=bedamn).



> written for bedamn's request at my writing meme for Harry/Clara; follows on from the events of Water.

“Just an orange juice for me,” Harry says, glowing with virtue.

 _And the band played Believe It If You Like_ , Clara thinks stonily.

Harry's face falls. “You never let up, do you?”

“What?” Clara says. “I'm supposed to fall on your neck now just because you ask for orange juice?”

She's been here too often before. Even when she couldn't work out where the vodka was stashed, she knew it was there. She'd taken a swig once from Harry's glass by mistake, spent the next minute and a half choking. Harry always _did_ like it strong.

Which at first had seemed just part of that larger than life quality she had. Irresistible, till you find out the hard way what it means.

She remembers that description of _the drinker's smile_ that made her think of Harry: _that fire-exit smile ... absolving and untouchable and tenderly alight_. Bloody good novel, but she hadn't been able to finish reading it. She'll go back to it another time. Maybe.

It's all so shiny and glorious at the start –

 _the flood of excitement, soaking everything, incredible, inexhaustible, the grip of Harry's thighs around her neck squeezing the life out of her_ –

till one day you find there's no air left and no space to move in and you don't understand when your life became a trap.

You hope against hope that the good times will come back, if only you could do the right thing. But there is no right thing, only a narrowing array of bad choices.

She doesn't understand even now why she couldn't walk away. Why she had to wait to be left, had to accept Harry's rejection and blame as the price of her escape. All she knows is that she's not going back.

If that is what Harry wants. Clara's still not sure why she wanted to meet.

“I've been clean for months now,” Harry says.

“Congratulations,” Clara says, trying not to sound sarcastic.

( _Don't think about what Luke said about the drying-out clinic: people will do anything rather than change, they will literally die rather than change_.)

“I'm seeing someone,” Harry blurts out.

 _Oh_.

“Yes?” Clara says, as neutrally as she can. She's not going to ask for details; just hopes she can escape without them.

“It's Sarah,” Harry says.

Clara runs through the faces of friends and acquaintances in her head, but nothing matches the name.

“Sarah?”

Harry looks uncomfortable. “Sarah Sawyer. John's ... colleague.”

John's ex-girlfriend. _Running true to form there, then._

The effort of not saying it means she's silent too long: she sees Harry's face crumple with hurt.

“You just can't be pleased for me, can you?” Harry says. “Because it didn't work out with us you don't want me to be happy with someone else.”

“Oh, Harry–” But it's too late.

"I don't know why I bothered," Harry says venomously. “You have never known how to love. _Never_.”

Orange juice is stickier than wine, Clara thinks, watching the liquid run down Harry's face. She puts Harry's empty glass carefully back down on the table and picks up her coat and handbag.

“Goodbye, Harry,” she says, getting up to go. “Goodbye, and good luck.”

**Author's Note:**

> the description of the drinker's smile comes from A.L. Kennedy's novel _Paradise_.


End file.
